• ad-lib • Pronunciation: æd-lib • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective, adverb, verb, noun Meaning: 1. (Adjective, adverb) Impromptu, spontaneous, as one pleases without preparation. 2. (Verb) To speak or otherwise present spontaneously, without preparation. 3. (Noun) Anything spoken or played spont...

• president • Pronunciation: pre -zê-dênt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. A person elected or appointed to preside over an organization, the highest ranking member of a management team, as 'the president of the New York Stock Exchange'. 2. The chief officer of the executive branch of a ...

• abrogate • Pronunciation: æb -rê-gayt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Verb, transitive Meaning: 1. To repeal, annul, cancel, or abolish something, such as a law. 2. To obviate, do away with, put an end to. Notes: This word has a large and happy family. The person who abrogates is an abrogator who carr...

• vulgar • Pronunciation: vêl -gêr • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: 1. Of the unwashed masses, plebian, related to common people, the riff-raff, the hoi-polloi. 2. Common, base, ordinary. 3. Bawdy, foul, immodest, immoral, impure, indecent, indelicate, lascivious, lecherous, lewd, lice...

• rivalrous • Pronunciation: rai -vêl-rês • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: Related to rivalry, competitive, adversariality. Notes: Today's is a word whose infrequent usage belies its beauty. It is the adjective of rivalry, which reflects the attitudes of rivals. Rival may be used as a verb,...

• dust-up • Pronunciation: dê -stêp • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A quarrel, a fight, a fracas. Notes: Today's Good Word is a derived noun consisting of dust and up. Usually, such nouns from verbs with prepositions come from verbs with the same prepositions, e.g. sit-in comes from the ve...

• amorous • Pronunciation: æm -ê-rês • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Filled with love, in love, expressing love—anything having to do with romantic love. Notes: Yes, tomorrow is the day of love, St. Valentine's Day. We cannot let the occasion pass without acknowledgement. Amorous is t...

• pretentious • Pronunciation: pri- ten -shês • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: 1. Attempting to impress with affected, exaggerated claims of importance or merit, as 'a pretentious old lady'. 2. Expressing an attitude of superiority, as 'pretentious claims about her social stature'. Not...

• saltate • Pronunciation: sæl -tayt • Hear it! Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive Meaning: 1. To leap, to spurt out. 2. To dance or dance about. (This word is not used in reference to people but to animals and inanimate objects.) Notes: No, it doesn't mean "to add salt" but it has a rath...

• ratatouille • Pronunciation: rah-tê- twee , rah-tê- tu -ee • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun, mass (no plural) Meaning: A vegetable stew, originating in Nice, consisting of eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and onions, prepared in or with olive oil. Recipe here. Notes: French borrowings that h...

• mastodon • Pronunciation: mæs -tê-dahn • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: A large, extinct, hairless elephant-like mammal of the family Mammutidae whose molars have nipple-like protrusions. Notes: Mastodons are often confused with the hairy mammoths. The two are not only distinguished by th...

• palliative • Pronunciation: pæ -li-yê-tiv • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective, Noun Meaning: 1. (Adjective) Reducing pain or suffering, ameliorating, improving. 2. (Noun) Anything that reduces pain or suffering or improves a situation without offering a permanent cure or solution. Notes: Today's...

• quodlibet • Pronunciation: kwahd-li- bet • Hear it! Part of Speech: Noun Meaning: 1. A topic or issue offered for debate. 2. (Music, humorous) A fanciful medley of tunes or musical pieces. Notes: Today's Good Word has fallen on hard times, but it has enjoyed great popularity in the past. The larg...

Pretty much the way English got from good to better and bad to worse . Centuries of development including periods where there were choices between two alternatives and the base of one was chosen and the comparative of the other. Most of the irregularities reside in the most common, frequently used w...

• pejorative • Pronunciation: pê- jo -rê-tiv • Hear it! Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: 1. Derogatory, negative, insulting. 2. Vulgar, profane. Notes: Pejorative terms are words like floozy and jerk , that are insulting to those they refer to. They include all the vulgar words and racial slurs t...